Reflection on Nine Inch Nails' Concept Album "Year Zero"

What if the path of greed and power ran their natural course without being stopped? We would probably get a dystopic world like the world painted in Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero.

This wallpaper has everything you need to infer from this dystopia.
 Greed, religious hypocrisy, and political divide.

The man who created this concept album, Trent Reznor, found his inspiration to write this album from a daydream. He dreamt that he saw the way that things were going at the time (during George W. Bush's 2nd term in mid-2000). This was a time where freedoms were eroding away due to post 9/11 surveillance. Greed seemed to be at its peak. Religious establishments preached hypocrisy. Trent Reznor imagined all of this becoming amplified and turning into a monstrous Dystopia where the government was cruel and unjust, religion taught hypocrisy as the new standard, and greed was abundant. Several songs touch on these visions that he had.

            In the song "Capital G", we see Trent Reznor address greed. "The biggest problem with the way that we've doing things is the more we let you have the less that I'll be keeping for me." In this line, we see the corrupt justification that greed maintains for itself. If someone takes something away from you, you have less. Sometimes people give in to greed and want to keep on getting more and more to no end. This part of the dark side of human nature is one that we try to keep from surfacing. Here, we see that greed can blind people into not helping others and letting the entire foundation fall down.

            The song "God Given" shows us the religious hypocrisy of this dystopia. "We are the divine / separated from the swine." Most religions have doctrines that say that you must love others because it is morally right. However, hypocrisy is something very common found among extreme religious advocates. This view that you are "divine" and everybody else who isn't riding the same boat is "swine" fundamentally contradicts the basis of morals that most religions preach. This condescending hatred strongly evokes social Darwinist views more than the actual religion's supposed "morals".

         We see how the government in this dystopia assimilates its people in the song "The Greater Good". "Breathe us in / Slowly." This shows how the dystopian government forces people to obey in things they wouldn't normally obey. An unreasonable concept can be reasoned with, if done so in small, seemingly insignificant amounts. So, the government feeds its unsuspecting people tiny bits and pieces that eventually form the whole picture of what they want them to see. They have to find a reason to believe in insane concepts. The government uses "persuasion, coercion, submission, [and] assimilation" in order to give them reasons to believe in these concepts.

         The world of Year Zero is a distorted reflection of how things were like in mid-2000. It showed us how horrible it can be if we allow greed, hypocrisy, and government control to get out of hand. It is through the viewpoint of this dystopia that we can truly recognize some of the faults that we have in our society.